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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 3. 1966.

Bright beer book good reading

Bright beer book good reading

"I Hereby pronounce Prohibition to be as inevitable as death in Maoriland."

So wrote the New Zealand correspondent for the Sydney Bulletin in 1902, as he viewed the growing Prohibition vote at each election.

Death did come, in parts—even today the pubs stop where New-town starts—but never completely. While the issue hung in balance, political life had a dramatic flavour. Never before, and never, again, have New Zealanders been so closely divided on any issue.

Part of the story is told in Pat Lawlor's "Froth-blowers Manual" —along with much more. There we can read of the bitter struggle to keep the Newtown Hotels open— they went dry in 1909—and details, of the men who beat them.

The book isn't really any of the, things which Mr. Lawlor claims for it. It is hardly a "history," not really a "beer encyclopaedia" and unlikely to "settle all arguments."

It is rather, a gay grab-bag of fact and fiction, a miscellany of details on beer which will add something to the growing traditions of the New Zealand pubs.

The historian will find more in Bollinger's "Grogs Own Country," or the "History of the Prohibition Movement in New Zealand": the tales of James McNcish in "Tavern in the Town" show an exhaustive search for the picturesque.

But Mr. Luwlor has something lighter to offer, attractively and inexpensively presented. It is sincere and personal, even if it is different to share his effusive enthusiasm for some of the "beer ballads" he has collected. Recommended light reading.

"The Froth Blowers' Manual," by Pal Lawlor, published by the author, Wellington. 1965. 131pp., 10/6. Reviewed by H. B. Rennie